


A Mess You'd Wear with Pride

by infernalandmortal



Series: Memori Drabbles [4]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-08
Updated: 2016-08-08
Packaged: 2018-08-07 13:14:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7716118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infernalandmortal/pseuds/infernalandmortal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When John Murphy reluctantly agrees to play in the band at the spring formal, he had no idea that practice would yeild more than terrible renditions of terrible songs.<br/>(Or: John Murphy meets a girl with a face tattoo and a whacked-out hand and naturally just has to fall in love.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Mess You'd Wear with Pride

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome to another Memori AU because I haven't any chill :P
> 
> I'd like to give credit to ThanksForTheBreasthat here on Ao3 for introducing me to the glorious AU idea in which John Murphy can play the piano. Also thanks to what_a_catch here on Ao3 for aiding me in perpetuating said AU.
> 
> The title of this one-shot comes from the song _I Go to the Barn Because I Like The_ by Band of Horses. I highly recommend listening to it on repeat while reading this fic - it's what I did while writing it because it really adds to the aesthetic of the fic!
> 
> Okay, I've blabbed enough. Enjoy!

It all started with a song and a spring formal.

Murphy liked hanging out in the music room after school. It was quiet and well-lit and well-removed from the entire student body and there was something about the ancient upright piano in the corner that reminded Murphy of growing up and learning Mozart and Beethoven from Little Learner piano books while his dad guided his fingers. He wasn’t so great at reading sheet music, let alone words, so he just improvised, killing hour upon hour on the piano bench between minor keys and three-four time.

He didn’t have many friends.  This didn’t seem relevant at the time but it quickly becomes so. His one sort-of-friend is named Raven and they don’t talk anymore, not after the accident that blew her spine to bits and left her with one less leg than she’d had at the beginning of that summer.  Murphy knew she wasn’t mad but that just made things worse. He couldn’t bring himself to accept her forgiveness so he avoided her instead.

Solid tactic, right?

His music teacher, an elderly lady that Murphy couldn’t help but be nice to, asked if he’d mind playing a few songs with the band during spring formal. It didn’t pay and promised to be terribly boring, but he grudgingly agreed if only to wipe the sadness off the 70-something’s face. He wasn’t that cruel.

The band wanted to play pop hits from the 80s and 90s, a concept that Murphy was quietly but vehemently against, mostly because he didn’t want to be part of yet another horribly cheesy school dance. There was a reason why he didn’t really frequent those events of his own volition. But he gritted his teeth and memorized the awful music, reasoning that this would be his good deed for the decade and he’d never have to do something like that again.

But then he ran into a problem. Literally.

Her name was Emori and she was beautiful and sarcastic and sad and Murphy wanted to choke himself every time he caught himself thinking about her while he played some sappy song from his parents’ era. She always sat outside the music room while they rehearsed, which is how they met thanks to Murphy’s clumsiness and her quick reflexes.

“You should watch where you’re going,” she had half-laughed after she nearly tripped him in what looked like a move of self-defense. She jumped to her feet and helped him up and Murphy was a goner as soon as she touched his hand.

But, being the genius he was, he decided to be an asshole first.

“I could say the same for you,” he retorted. “What are you, some stalker for one of the boy-band wannabes?” He motioned to the band members who retreated down the opposite hallway. Some of them flipped Murphy off as they went. He pretended not to notice.

She scoffed, looked him up and down, her posture both challenging and frightened. “I don’t think so.” She cocked her head. “Your name’s John, right?”

Murphy shrugged, stuffed his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. “It can be. What’s yours?”

“Emori.” That was it. Her brown eyes turned liquid in the February sun that shone from the music room. “Do you play piano? You have the fingers for it.” Fighting back a relatively inappropriate comment that would be better coming from Raven’s mouth than his own, Murphy simply nodded. “I want to hear something. Play for me?”

Murphy should’ve stayed put, should’ve turned her down and walked away. Instead he spun on his heel, his fingers itching for another chance at the keys.

He improvised at first but when he caught a glimpse of her wide eyes and startlingly peaceful expression, he lapsed into a poor rendition of a lyrical waltz he’d heard on pop radio a couple days ago. She moved slowly from across the room to the bench next to him and Murphy wordlessly scooted over to let her sit. Her leg pressed against his made his fingers shake and her eyes on his hands made his foot tremble on the pedal.  When he finished, it was dark and her eyes were too far away for his taste.

She smiled at him and it was full of her bad memories. “They should let you go solo for the dance,” was all she said, standing up and too-casually stretching her arms. “You play well.”

Something about her accent and the flash of her white teeth and the tattoo just barely visible where her shirt rode up made Murphy rethink his posture on the dance. “The only way I’d go is if I got to play.”

“Not so much the formal type?” She asked.

Murphy gestured to his leather jacket, beaten combat boots, and messy hair. “Do I look like a tuxedo kind of guy?”

She laughed and Murphy wished she wouldn’t have. “I suppose not. Then again, I’m not that kind of girl either.”

She was tall and thin with dark skin and a carefully-concealed tattoo on her left cheek. Murphy had no doubt that she’d be beautiful in a dress. He kept that theory to himself. “No one asked you?”

She gave him an odd look, pulled her left sleeve up until her too-big coat revealed a left hand about two sizes too big, with fused fingers and knobby joints. The first thing Murphy thought was,  _ damn, she’s even hotter now _ . The second was how much her hand looked like the whole ginger root that his mom used to get from the grocery store.

“I wouldn’t cover it up,” he said because he wouldn’t. It looks natural, fits with her tough scars and her pretty eyes. “I think it’s pretty badass.”

Her eyes filled unexpectedly; he blinked and the tears were gone. “Liar.” She tucked the hand away - Murphy only momentarily mourned its loss - and swept her long dark hair over one shoulder. “No one wants to dance with this hand on their shoulder.

It took Murphy a slow-tongued moment to realize that  _ I would want to  _ and by then it’s too late and the conversation turned to getting home for dinner.

She lived about three miles outside of town with her older brother who was supposed to pick her up but is staying late at work for the third night in a row. Murphy offered to drive her and was surprised when she said yes.

He walked her to the door and stood on the rickety porch with the peeling paint while Emori fumbled with her keys in the lock. “Thanks for the ride.”

“It’s..um, it was nothing.” He motioned almost helplessly with the hand not resting securely in his pocket. She turned the knob with a creak, looked back over her shoulder almost shyly before letting herself in. “See you around?”

_ Say something, you idiot,  _ he scolded himself. “Yeah. Can I look forward to tripping over you tomorrow?”

She laughed and he thought that maybe he was capable of cleverness. “Sure. Bye, John.”

He waved goodbye, dodged the creaky third step of her front porch, got into his car just in time to see a pair of headlights approach the house. A boy with thin features and a scarred face watched him with eagle eyes as he drove past. Murphy just knew he was Emori’s brother and the thought made him strangely queasy.

He realized with a start that he wanted to see her at the dance. Her fascinated eyes on his fingers while he played were enough to coax music out of him. The hum that eased its way out of the back of her throat was as addicting as a cigarette. He wanted to see her in a dress, wanted to dance with her in the shadows of the school’s ancient gymnasium. He wanted to hold her hand, the bad-ass one, not the other one.

In short, he was a goner and an idiot and he just knew that his dead father would’ve never let him live this down.

* * *

 

February turned to March turned to April and Murphy found himself standing outside after school in the afternoon sun with two tickets to spring formal and a ridiculous idea to get Emori to go with him.

“I was thinking,” he began, opening his car door for her, “about the dance, I mean.”

She looked up at him from the seat. “I’m glad to see you’re thinking for a change,” she teased. Murphy cracked a smile at her impish eyes. She ran her hands along his dashboard, turning sideways so her feet were planted on the pavement. “What about the dance? Please tell me it has something to do with changing the set list because I can’t stand 90’s pop.”

“It’s actually about us. I wanted to know if you’d go with me.” He knelt on the pavement, both knees scraping the cracks, so he was level with her eyes.

She studied his face for a long second, leaned forward, and kissed him on the cheek. His heart raced. They’d done this before - tentatively brushed hands in the music room, kissed one another on the cheek or nose when the situation warranted affection - but she was more beautiful every month and Murphy was sick of dreaming about kissing her on the mouth.

“Thank you for asking me.” Her voice was low, sad, a little longing. “I’d go with you if I could. But…” She sighed, wrapped her dark flannel shirt around her torso, avoided his eyes. “I’m just not that kind of girl, John.”

“The kind of girl who dances?” He was curious to know what made her supposedly unworthy of a school dance since he actually dared to believe it wasn’t him that had chased her away.

“No, John.” She sighed affectionately. “I’m not the kind of girl who wears pretty dresses and slow-dances to God-awful music.”

Murphy nodded, feeling the tickets torching his back pocket. “Got it.”

She reached for his hand, tangled his fingers in hers. “Are we good?”

He lifted her hand to his lips, bolder by the second. “Good as ever.” He brushed his lips over her knuckles, smiled when she shivered.  He’d have a dance with her yet.

He locked eyes with Raven while getting into the driver’s seat. She was walking towards her car - the well-loved Dodge Cavilier that he knew she was still tinkering with - and when their eyes met, he almost broke. He almost said hello, almost told her that he missed her, that he was sorry that he could never forgive himself.

But the moment passed and he caved under Emori’s questioning look, getting into the car and driving her home in silence.

“You need to forgive yourself.” Of course she would know. “She has.”

“I can’t, Emori. Not yet.”

She sighed. “Okay, John.”

* * *

When it came down to it, Murphy couldn’t wait to blow off the dance. He suffered through the formal’s set list, bypassed the spiked punch bowl (albeit with difficulty), and snagged a frail-looking rose from the table arrangement on his way out the door. It was a perfect spring night: slightly overcast, breezy and comfortably cool. Murphy knew the way to Emori’s by heart now and drove there with slightly less care than usual.

He pulled up to her porch, left the headlights and radio on, noticed with interest that her brother’s car was nowhere to be seen. Her bedroom light was on - he could see her silhouette against the thin curtains - and he waited until she stopped moving to ring their barely-functioning doorbell.

Emori’s eyes widened when she opened the door, taking in his father’s tuxedo that was slightly too big for his too-thin frame, her favorite music playing from his car radio, the flickering light on the front porch left on for her brother. She was inexplicably wearing something that might have once been a slip dress, a black thing with thin straps that showed the cut of her bare arms and the curve of her collarbone. Her eyes were glossy in the night’s light; Murphy worried that he’d choke on his own tongue if he dared speak.

“What are you doing here, John?” She finally asked, torn between a laugh and something else.

“I blew off the dance. I have somewhere better to be.” He held the flower out to her. She took it, twirled it in her bad hand. “Will you dance with me?”

A soft acoustic waltz picked up on the breeze; Emori’s lips turned up when she recognized the off-beat stylings of her favorite artists. “Here? On the porch?”

“There’s the grass, if you prefer. Or the driveway.” He responded cheekily.

“Shut up, John.” She deposited the flower inside, closed the door, and reached for his hand.

He took her left hand in his, draped it over his shoulder, and held her as close as he dared as he led her in front of the headlights. She moved with him easily, as if she’d danced in pairs before, and Murphy let himself fantasize about kissing her one more time.

“You’re nice,” she laughed when he tried to spin her, her bare feet crunching the gravel.

“Oh? And here I thought you got me.” He teased back.

She blinked up at him. “I think I do.” And then she was kissing him.

He kissed her back. It was messy, a virgin kiss, but he didn’t care and it felt like she didn’t either. The song ended. They kept dancing. Eventually she took him inside where they ate leftover cookies and made out on her couch. When he went home around midnight, he pulled out his phone and hit two on his speed dial.

“Hey Raven, it’s me.” He said to the voicemail. “I wanted to talk. I… I miss you.” He paused, ran his fingers through his hair. “I met a girl. Her name’s Emori. She’s beautiful and a good kisser and- ah, I’ll tell you later. Call me. If you want.”

He hung up, imagined Emori’s smile, and knew that for once in his life, he’d made a good choice.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading and reviewing! I hope you enjoyed :)


End file.
